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October CMS auth bypass and account takeover

High severity GitHub Reviewed Published Aug 26, 2021 in octobercms/october • Updated Jan 29, 2023

Package

composer october/system (Composer)

Affected versions

< 1.0.472
>= 1.1.1, < 1.1.5

Patched versions

1.0.472
1.1.5

Description

Impact

An attacker can exploit this vulnerability to bypass authentication using a specially crafted persist cookie.

  • To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker must obtain a Laravel’s secret key for cookie encryption and signing.
  • Due to the logic of how this mechanism works, a targeted user account must be logged in while
    the attacker is exploiting the vulnerability.
  • Authorization via persist cookie not shown in access logs.

Patches

Workarounds

Apply octobercms/library@016a297 and octobercms/library@5bd1a28 to your installation manually if you are unable to upgrade.

[Update 2022-01-20] Shortened patch instructions can be found here.

Recommendations

We recommend the following steps to make sure your server stays secure:

  • Keep server OS and system software up to date.
  • Keep October CMS software up to date.
  • Use a multi-factor authentication plugin.
  • Change the default backend URL or block public access to the backend area.
  • Include the Roave/SecurityAdvisories Composer package to ensure that your application doesn't have installed dependencies with known security vulnerabilities.

References

Bugs found as part of Solar Security CMS Research. Credits to:
• Andrey Basarygin
• Andrey Guzei
• Mikhail Khramenkov
• Alexander Sidukov
• Maxim Teplykh

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

References

@daftspunk daftspunk published to octobercms/october Aug 26, 2021
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Aug 26, 2021
Reviewed Aug 26, 2021
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Aug 30, 2021
Last updated Jan 29, 2023

Severity

High

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
High
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
None

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

EPSS score

0.125%
(48th percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2021-29487

GHSA ID

GHSA-h76r-vgf3-j6w5

Source code

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